Chapter I: Shall Never See You Again 241 (4)

Pallas Athena in an hour of ease
From guarding states and succoring the wise,
Pressed wistfully her lips against a flute
Made by a Phrygian youth from resonant wood
Cut near Sangarius. Upon a bank
Made sweet by daisies and anemone
She sat with godly wisdom exercised
Blowing her breath against the stubborn tube
That it might answer and vibrate in song.
But while she played, down-looking, she beheld
A serpent’s eyes, which by the water’s edge
Lay coiled among the reeds, as if aware
Of the divinity that filled the place.
Then Athena saw her image in the cove,
Where like a silver mirror, motionless
Sangarius lay, and seeing her own face
Thus suddenly, was stricken with surprise
Of her fair forehead wrinkled, and her lips
Pursed and distorted as she strove to curb
The resisting instrument. So with a smile,
A little laugh, which brought her beauty back,
And gilded like a gradual burst of sun
The water where the charmed serpent lay
Lifting his head up to the living warmth,
She threw the flute down, and Olympus way
Vanished, from sight.

Marsyas all the while
Beneath an oak’s shade by the water’s edge
Had drowsed voluptuously, and heard the notes,
Dreaming some shepherd youth who watched his sheep
Upon a near-by hill which to the swale
Sloped in luxuriance, upon a reed
His idle fancies loosened from the stops.
But when Athena passed him, since he heard
A roar of wings, as when a flock of quail
Up-fly the hunter’s step, he woke to find
The forest silent and the music gone.
Then straying toward the rushes, he espied
The flute upon the golden sands, and took it
And tried his lips upon it, where the lips
Of Pallas Athena left it fragrant, moist,
And with a soul, which to the artless breath
Of the rude Satyr gave melodious speech.
So thinking that the music was his own
And that the flute was but a worthless wood
Save that it made his genius manifest,
And swollen with conceit Marsyas sent
A word of challenge to the Delphic god,
Apollo of the cithara, for trial
Of skill in music, saying who should prove
The victor might do with the other what
Pleased him to do, and let the Muses judge.

But when Athena heard Apollo laugh,
Where the nine Muses gossiped of the dare
Which Marsyas uttered, for the lower meadows
Of flowered Olympus whispered of the thing
In jest and quip, and knowing that her soul
Still echoed in the flute, but would anon
Fade from it as the perfume from a girdle
Tinct by the touch of Aphrodite’s hand,
Spoke to Apollo: “Grant a little time
Wherein the Satyr may improve his skill.”
To which the Muses nodded ’mid their smiles.
But yet Apollo gave assent, though teased
By reason of their chatter and the thought
Hid in Athena’s word that any respite
Granted the Satyr could prosper his success.

Meanwhile Marsyas waited for the day
Appointed of Apollo. Near Sangarius
And through the woodlands tireless with the flute:
Sometimes in imitative harmony
Mocking the sound of fluttering leaves, and now
The musical winds that blow in early spring
Around a peak of dancing asphodel
Where the sea warms them, and at other times
The little waves that patter on the sands
Of old Sangarius rich in numerous flags.
And once he strove with music’s alchemy
To turn to sound the sunlight of the morn
Which fills the senses as illuminate dew
Quickens the ovule of the tiger-flower.
Again he sang the sorrow of his youth
When a wild nymph after one day of bliss
Fled him while sleeping. And again he beat
The rhythm lying at the root of life
Which marks the whirling planets. And Apollo
Hearing betimes a note of purest tone
Fall like a star, betrayed his wonderment--
Whereat the muses vexed him with their smiles
And whisperings to each other. But Apollo
Could sense the Satyr’s waning skill, which dulled
With its employment, as Athena’s soul
Died from the flute, although the Satyr knew not
Each day of waiting doomed him:

Then at last
The day dawned for the trial of their skill,
And Marsyas came bearing the hollow flute--
For all had left it of Athena’s soul.
Then on Sangarius’ wooded banks the muses
To judge assembled, fair, majestical.
With arms entwined some close together stood,
Some half-reclined upon the flowery grass,
But all bore in their eyes the light of mirth
Suppressed, half-hidden. Then, for that Euterpe
Was mistress of the flute, since it was deemed
Fair to the Satyr that the contest be
Judged by the flute, gave signal to begin.
Whereat Apollo struck the cithara
To test the strings, and all the wood was hushed,
Awed by the magic of its harmony.
But when Marsyas blew upon the flute
A fear coursed through him as his wonder rose
Whether Apollo had bewitched its soul
To such discordance, or its utterance,
Such as he knew it, when compared with the god’s
Was so unmusical. Yet he dare not fail
The contest, so they waged it to the end,
While the sweet muses now grown pitiful
No longer smiled, but turned their heads away
In sorrow for Marsyas, for his shame
And for the fate to follow.

So at last
With one accord the muses rose and looked
With eyes significant upon Apollo,
Who angered by the Satyr’s swollen pride
And monstrous failure, had become a will
Of resolute retribution. But the muses,
Because they feel for those who trying lose,
Even as a mother for her crippled son
Whom the sound-footed distance in the race,
Hastened away lest they behold the thing
That came to pass. And flinging far the flute
Marsyas shrieked and sank upon the earth.

Whereat Apollo seized his wretched form
And lifting him up, with strips of laurel bark
Bound the poor Satyr to a rugged oak
And flayed him alive, and took the Satyr’s skin
And hung it in a cave, and turned his blood
To water, whence the river Marsyas
That from the cave flows onward to this day.

WORLDS BACK OF WORLDS

This was the world: It was a house
With a cool hallway end to end
Where buckets, pans and dippers hung,
And coats that in the breezes swung;
And eaves in which ’twas good to browse
On books stored in a musty box.
Along the walks were lilac boughs,
And by the windows hollyhocks.
And there were fields down to the hills
Which marked the earth’s far boundary;
A church-spire at the roadway’s bend,
And barns and cribs and twinkling mills,
And neighbor friends like Mrs. Gray,
And endless days of dream and play.
It was a world so guarded, safe,
So cherished by a God-watched sky
Seeing the summers come and pass,
A world so quiet it appeared
Like to the mimic world ensphered
By witchery of the old field glass
Which from an uncle’s drawer I took
Upon the distant hills to look.
You know not then that worlds not dead
Lie back of you and bide their chance
To seize your world of ignorance:
There was an opening in the ceiling
Above the kitchen where the man
Sat humming to himself at night
Amid the enshadowed candle-light,
And played on his accordion
Happy, unconscious and alone.
There full of mischief would I lie
And watch him through the ceiling’s hole,
And laugh for thought of elfish tricks,
Of whispering words or dropping sticks
To fright his well contented soul.
Sometimes I think there is an eye
Which is not God’s that spies upon us;
That other worlds may lie about us
Our fathers or our mothers lived,
Where Forces lurk and laugh and wait.

Here then was my world’s fair estate--
For so I knew it--could it be
Disturbed or wrecked? I never thought
That change or loss could come to me,
With God above the church’s spire....

But what are all these April dreams?
Less tangible the landscape seems;
The windmills, barns and houses swim
In a sphered ether, wheeling, dim.
Red cattle on green meadows pass
Across a belt of bluest sky
Like objects in the old field glass.
The chickens stalk about the yard
Like phantom things in my regard
And songs and cries and voices sound
Like muffled echoes from the ground.
Stones and dead sticks crawl and move;
And bones that through the winter lay
Something of living power betray.
I sink in all things dizzily,
Made one with nature, all I see,
Until I have no way to prove
My separate identity.
Yet death is what? Why, death is this:
Something that comes but is far off.
They worry sometimes for my cough.
I know they watch me, know they cry,
But what can wreck my earth or sky?

The doctor comes now every day
And with my father sits and talks,
Or stands about the garden walks.
One day I hear them: “It appears
Sometimes in ten or twenty years
As madness or paralysis.
Sometimes it passes, leaves a scar
And never troubles one again.
You say you had this in the war?
It’s hit your boy as phthisis,
Also I think he’s going blind.”
I saw my father trembling wind
Some plucked grass round and round his hand.
They noticed me, walked further on
And left me dreaming where I sat.

Some years since that day now are gone.
I have no world now, none but night.
My father’s world lay back of mine
And wrecked my world so guarded, safe,
So cherished by a God-watched sky
Which looked on summers rise and pass,
So like an image caught and held
By witchery of the old field glass.

THE PRINCESS’ SONG

“Blow, blow, thou wind,
Blow Conrad’s hat away,
Its rolling do not stay,
Till I have combed my hair,
And tied it up behind.”

Blow, blow, thou wind,
Blow Conrad’s love away,
My prince will come to-day.
Let him but find me fair,
And searching find.

The queen my mother grieves
For hopes that went astray.
Blow thou my grief away,
Among the April flags,
Among the dancing leaves.

Fill thou their golden wings,
And make the great clouds fly
Like swans across the sky,
Above the mountain crags
Where the young eaglet clings.

Blow--yet the mad wind dies
Among the flags and ferns.
And Conrad still returns,
Ere I have bound my hair,
Or dried my eyes.

Blow, blow, thou wind--
Blow Conrad’s love away.
But since it will not stay,
Blow thou afar my care
And make me kind.

As even, lad, thou art.
Blow, blow, thou wind, but since
Vainly I wait the prince
Come, Conrad, loose my hair,--
Thou loyal heart!

THE FURIES

I

But you must act. And therein lies the way
Of freedom from the Furies. You must burn
The substance of your being, if you stay
The impetus of life you will not learn
The simples of salvation. Go pluck off
A serpent from Alecto’s head and laugh
Exhilarate with its poison. If you scoff
You will perceive. You cannot love the staff
You have not scorned. You cannot weigh the act
You have not lived, the fear you did not prove.
Your soul was made to focus and extract
Through action every hatred, every love.
Pour out yourself if you would know release
From what the Furies do to spoil your peace.

II

Ambition that eludes, love never found
High hopes that tempt, or goodness still pursued
Have their own Furies, for this mortal ground
Breeds serpents from the blood of fortitude
And action as it does from listless fear.
You have aspired and fallen, curse the past
Till madness come! Be quiet, hide or sear
The memory of the dream, no less at last
The Sisters shall arrive! How do they come?
Your life grows round a moral governance
And you have served it. You are stricken dumb
To see it crumble spite of vigilance.
Now when you cannot think, rebuild, repair
The Sisters come and wheel your cripple’s chair.

III

You were a fennel stalk that laughed and grew
With laughter till the life in you could use
The cells no further, then the cold winds blew,
And you fell whispering of the April dews.
Grown fair or foul the rhythmic force was spent,
The summer gone, your little past achieved,
Repulsions balanced, though you might lament
So much neglected, or too much believed.
You were a dry weed when a Great Hand seized
And bore you as a carrier of fire.
The garden you had grown in had not pleased!
Was this, perhaps, the end of your desire?
You lit a heap of leaves where children came,
The Furies meditating watched the flame!

APOLLO AT PHERÆ

Zeus envied Æsculapius that he healed
The sick and brought the dead to life, and fain
Would slay him. So the Cyclops brought Zeus lightning
With which Zeus smote the healer. Then Apollo
Destroyed the Cyclops, grieving for his son.
And Clotho laughed to see the thread of fate
Slip by Atropos, woven in the cloth
Of destiny. For had she cut the thread
Shot from the spindle, then a little trace
Of scarlet, but no figures of despair
Had marked the storied tapestry. So Apollo
Was doomed for punishment to tend the flocks
Of King Admetus, lord of Pheræ. Next
Apollo met a mortal woman, daughter
Of an old soldier, servitor of the gods
And rich in land.

He, sitting on a rock
That overlooked a green Thessalian field
Where grazed the flocks, clad in a leopard’s skin,
His crook beside him, dreamed of wide Olympus:
“This hour the muses dance, the Council sits
And there is high debate, or Hera storms
For Zeus’ absence; there is life, and I
Unknown, alone, a shepherd by this field
Of pastoral pathos labor all the day.”
And then a step disturbed his revery;
And looking up he saw a slender maid
White as gardenias, jonquil-haired, with eyes
As blue as Peneus when he meets the sea.
And an old weakness crept upon the god.
For ever in his soul there shone the face
Of woman, like the face of Artemis,
His virgin sister, delicate and chaste;
And to o’ercome such whiteness and reserve
Had been Apollo’s madness from his birth.
And this Chione, daughter of the soldier,
Servitor of the gods and rich in land
At once became his passion. So he rose
And to Chione spoke, and she, to him.
And then anon she saw the unkept curls
Sun-bleached, that touched his shoulders, then his breast,
Smooth as her own, and then his arms, his hands
His shapely knees, his firm and pointed feet,
And her eyes closed as stars beneath the dawn
And dawn rose in her cheeks. And the god knew
Her inmost thought.

So all that day they played,
Amid the wind-blown light of Thessaly.
He wove her traps for crickets from the grass,
And from the willow branches made her flutes;
He caught her butterflies, and sang her runes
Of living things, and how the earth and sea
From Erebus and Love sprang into being;
And how the sun, and the bright pageant of the stars
Dance joyously to music. And Chione
Was dumb for happiness; and the day went by.
But with the dusk there came a swooning languor,
All was forgotten save the shepherd’s face
Held close to hers, and round his moving curls
The circled splendor of the sickle moon--
Nor eyes, nor lips, only a golden blur.
And rousing she beheld the enshadowed field
Flockless and silent, and the shepherd gone.
Then through the night Chione weakly walked
And found at last her home.

The light of day
Brought terror to Chione. Then she sought
And found Apollo where he sat before
And told him that her father, the old soldier,
Was favored of Admetus, and would bring
The royal power against him, if he failed
The troth of wedlock. And Apollo mused
Upon his exile from Olympus’ throne,
And Zeus’ wrath against him, that he slew
The Cyclops, and upon his shepherd state
Tending Admetus’ flocks, and how unknown
And weak he stood between these kingly hands
Of Zeus and of Admetus. And seeing her fair,
More fair in tears, he gave her his consent.

Next day Chione brought the god a robe
And sandals and a girdle. Thus arrayed
Chione took him to her father’s home
The ancient soldier, servitor of the gods,
And rich in land, and spoke of him as Acteus
A merchant from the city. Then the father
Gave thanks to Zeus and at the family board
Apollo supped, as one who would become
Chione’s husband. So it came to pass.
They walked together in the bridal train
Behind the perfumed torches.

All the while
Zeus smiled to see Apollo’s punishment.
And Hera, who with woman’s subtlety,
Knew that there shone within Apollo’s soul
A face like to the face of Artemis,
His virgin sister, delicate and chaste,
And to o’ercome such whiteness and reserve
Had been Apollo’s madness from his birth,
Laughed freely with the muses as she said:
“Thus is the masculine spirit ever caught
By its own lure, let Zeus himself take heed
Lest sometime he be snared.”

So when Olympus
Grew dull, the gods for fun looked o’er the ramparts
And spied upon Apollo at the board
With all Chione’s family; or at night
Beside Chione and the little faces
Which every year increased. Or on Apollo
About his bitter task of shepherding
To win the bread for faded Chione
And for the children.

Thus the nine years passed.
Then Zeus, avenged, sent all the muses down
To bring Apollo back, and to Olympus
Humbled and sorrowful he came again,
With wrinkles and a touch of whitened hair,
And a lack-lustre eye, which all the art
Of Aphrodite after many days
Could scarce remove.

Then Chione told her father
That Acteus was not a merchant from the city.
“Too late,” she said, “I found he had deceived me
And masked his shepherd calling.”

To which her father
The ancient soldier, servitor of the gods
And rich in land: “Yea, daughter, he deceived you.
Now he has run away, abandoned you,
May the gods note it and avenge the wrong.”

STEAM SHOVEL CUT

Steam Shovel Cut lies through a wood,
And the trestle’s at the end.
And north are the lonely Fillmore Hills,
And south the river’s bend.

It’s Christmas day and the blue on the hill
Is flapped by a flying crow.
And the steel of the railroad track is cold,
And the Cut is piled with snow.

What is that there by the trestle’s end
Where the Cut slopes down to the slough?
That’s Cora Williams lying there
In her cloak of faded blue.

Her skirt is red as a northern spy,
And her mittens blackberry black.
And under her cotton underskirt
There’s a green place on her back.

Her little gray hat is over her brow,
And covers a purple bruise.
She had white stockings for her feet
And the holes were in her shoes.

Where did you meet Croak Carless, girl?
And where did you start to booze?
They saw you once at Rigdon’s place,
And last at Sandy Hughes’.

On the night that Jesus Christ was born
You were drinking gin and beer.
They saw you sitting on Carless’ knees
As the midnight hour drew near.

They saw you two start into the night,
And the night was cold and black.
And then they found you there by the bridge
With the green bruise on your back.

Down through the dark to the Shovel Cut
The two of you walked and sang.
You were holding hands on the trestle bridge
When the bell began to clang.

’Twas back of the curve that the head-light shone
So what was the use of eyes?
The mad iron thing leaped on you there
As you ran on the trestle ties.

It rushed on you like a furious bull
That charges a scarlet flag.
The engineer looked long at the gauge
As the fireman scraped the slag.

Croak Carless jumped and fell on a stone
And the world to him was a blank.
But the iron thing struck at your back
And doubled you down on the bank.

Croak Carless woke from a sleep like death
And found you covered with blood.
He slinks to the river to wash his hands,
He runs to hide in the wood.

He steals through thickets, hides in a barn,
He cowers where the corn’s in shock.
But the posse catches Croak by noon,
And the jailer turns the lock.

Croak Carless’ wife weeps at the bars,
Croak weeps in a grated cell.
They’ve mortgaged the farm for a lawyer’s fee
To save Croak’s soul from hell.

For the Coroner has a bat-like thing
In a bottle safe in his room.
It looks like a baby devil fish--
It’s Cora Williams’ womb.

A woman’s womb is a thing of doom
And winged with a fan-like mesh.
And who was the father, they’re asking Croak,
Of this bit of jelly flesh?

And the doctors took an oath in the court
That a sharp club did the deed.
And the judge was a foe of the lawyer man
Croak Carless paid to plead.

And Croak had talked too much in jail,
And he trembled and testified
To a woeful tangle of time and place,
And the jury thought he lied.

Croak Carless’ wife sobbed out in court
As they twisted him out and in.
For they made him swear he drank with the girl,
And swear to his carnal sin.

They stood him up on the gallow’s trap
And his voice was clear and low:
If I killed Cora Williams, men,
My soul to hell should go.

They sprang the trap, Croak Carless shot
Like a wheat bag toward the floor.
And the doctors let his body hang
Till his old heart beat no more.

They let him alone to work and sweat
For a wife’s and children’s ease.
But they hung him up for a little beer
With a woman on his knees.

And he might have died in bed in a year,
For when they opened him up
They found his heart was a played out pump,
And leaked like a rusty cup.

And a man can live as the church decrees,
Or dance in the way of vice,
A woman’s womb is a thing of doom,
And life is the current price.

’Tis a vampire bat, or the leather box
From which you rattle the dice.
’Tis an altar of doom, is a woman’s womb,
And man is the sacrifice.

THE HOUSES

You wonder why I bought so many houses,
Bought and repaired, built over home on house.
The first one was to make a home for Mary,
And Frank and Bessie, for I had myself
A settled home when I was boy and man,
And knew the feeling of respect, content
Which comes of one familiar and continued
Habitation for a boy who’s growing.
The first house, then, was poor enough, God knows!
A place that smelt in all the rooms of breath
A sick man breathes into the very paper.
The rat holes in the base boards had to be
Stopped up with plaster, all the floors were loose.
Bricks lay awry upon the chimney tops.
An old well with a windlass on the porch
Made one remember typhoid all the time.
Some apple trees half-rotted, covered over
With water sprouts stood in a yard of weeds.
A barn was at the yard’s end out of shape
From leaning at an angle. All in all
The place was haunted, but it was the best
I could afford just then, and naturally
She hated it and grumbled all the time.
A few years past, it seemed scarce two or three,
And all the children married, went away.
Just then I grew more prosperous and built over
The haunted house, and built a handsome barn,
Cut out the apple trees, destroyed the weeds,
And put an iron fence around the yard.
Put bathrooms, running water in the house.
She jawed at me for doing this, and asked
Why did you wait until the children left?
Of course she knew, but blamed me just the same.
And so we had no pleasure with this house.
She wanted larger rooms, and trees in front,
A sunny dining room--there was that porch
On which ours looked, and though I closed the well
She often wondered why we had not died
Before I closed it.

And about this time
Our banker moved away and left his house
For sale at public auction. I went down
Alone, not telling her, to look at it.
Here was a house upon a stone foundation
Built of red brick, peaked roof of slate, three stories,
Brick walks about the yard with plots of flowers,
A barn of brick--it was the very place!
There now were grandchildren; and so I dreamed
How they would romp about this lovely yard,
Or play on rainy days in that wide garret.
And so I bid and got the house at auction.
But when I told her she was up in arms:
The house would hold a family of ten!
Besides the upper rooms were far too small:
What is a dining room, or huge drawing room
If you step out of bed against the wall?
Then there’s that gully just below the barn
Breeding malaria, the banker’s family
Were sick year in and out--that’s why they sold it
For anything at public sale. O fool!
Well, Mary came that summer with her children,
And my poor dream in part was realized.
But Frank and Bessie moved to California
And never saw the happiness I planned
For them and for their children. Mary’s husband
Disliked the house--his hatred was beginning.
Next summer Mary left him and divorced him,
And started out to earn her children’s bread.
She didn’t come again.

And so it was true,
We didn’t need so large a house--we sold it
And bought a cottage of six rooms; this time
She joined with me in picking out the house,
But that was nothing, for no other house
Besides this one was up for sale just then.
No sooner had we moved than she was full
Of wounded memory and a mad regret:
She saw what she had lost. These little rooms!
This front fence almost jammed against the door!
And stoves again instead of radiators!
No running water, only an old pump
Above the kitchen sink! And near the station--
The bawling bussmen bothered her at night!
The midnight train woke her unfailingly.
And now she said our first house was all right
With this, or that corrected. We had blundered
In ever selling it and taking on
Such luxury in the brick house. It had spoiled
Her taste for living in a house like this,
With just a little yard, that hideous fence,
Which one could touch while standing in the door!
She said she could not breathe because of it,
And railed against her fate so that it brought
The next step in my life of buying houses....

Dreams entered in my brain of fields and woods,
A little lake perhaps, river or stream.
There was a fad of buying farms just then.
I went to Michigan on other business,
And there I saw one, bought it on the spot.
You see I had the passion as of drink,
And knew it as I ventured once again.
But then there was the house upon the bluff!
And there below it was the river! there
Beeches and oaks down to the river’s edge!
A great white house all new, and apple trees,
A vineyard and a field of eighty acres.
Here will I sit, I said, upon my bluff
And watch the river. I will keep a man
To farm the place, and prune the vines and trees,
This is the place at last. But then I thought
What will she say? She wants a farm I know,
But will this suit her? So I sent for her.
And when she came she kissed me, she was glad,
Commended my good judgment, loved the house,
Went through the barn in rapture, stood beneath
The windmill, which was near, to watch it pump.
Strolled down the wooded bluff, threw pebbles in
The river where the swallows dipped and flew,
And gathered daisies by the river’s shore.
I sat down in the grass flushed through with joy,
Like one who finds his haven, who has solved
Laborious troubles, thinking of the rest
I should take here--a man to run the place,
And months of summer recreation here!
I told her what my plan was.

No, she said,
To own a farm is business. You should know
By this time that you have no head for business.
I think you’ve shown some wisdom in this farm,
Or better you’ve had luck in buying it.
Your other ventures buying houses were
Enough to make you have distrust of self.
Now that you’ve bought the farm to make it pay
Is what we have in hand, and you must work.
We’ll keep a man, but he cannot do all
There is to do here, I will work and you
Must work as well, the farm must pay, you know.
I want the man to live with us in the house
So I can watch him, rout him out to work
At sun-up and keep watch upon his time.

We’ll keep two rooms for our use. For the man
Must have a family, these single fellows
Are off too much at night and think too much
In working hours of what they’ll do at night.

Perhaps I am a weakling with my dream
Of buying houses, for I dream of joys
And build my palaces, invite my joys
To enter and be glad. They never come!
She took the farm and ran it. It was business,
But business in disorder with a loss
For seed which did not sprout, and stock that died,
And glutted markets when the fruit was good.
I worked awhile, I fished once in the river,
I sat a few times on my wooded bluff--
And then I fled and left her to the farm
To rule a single farmer who cut weeds,
Abandoned weeds for plowing, left the plow
To make a flower bed, following her whims
Obedient, indifferent to results....

If you destroy a bird’s nest that’s the end.
The nesting birds return to find the branch
Where they had builded with such patient care,
All naked of their work. They look and fly
And think of what? But build no more that year.
But if you take a twig and scratch the grains
About the ant hill, overturn their work,
Stop up the door, the little folk begin
To build again, clear out the ruined hall--
They cannot be discouraged like the birds.
I think I am an ant--for even yet
I’m looking for a house, or better a home.
There is that house walled in with earth--that’s sure--
But if there is no house to fill my joy
Why have I looked for houses all my life?

THE CHURCH AND THE HOTEL

Over the dead lake
And in a dusty sky
The full moon is speared by the spire of the Baptist church;
Or now it hangs over the Groveland Hotel:
I do not know whether it is over the spire
Or over the hotel.

In a dusty sky the moon
Is the bottom of a copper kettle
Which cannot be scoured into brightness.
The sky is a faded mosquito net
Over a brass cylinder cap
Dulled with verdigris.

Some years ago,
Not many years ago,
The Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D.
At the pulpit under this spire
With habitual regularity
Used to say:
Let us pray.
And the Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D.
With habitual regularity
Used to preach
On the wages of sin.
And on Sunday evenings
As he was saying let us pray,
Ed Breen in Henry Hughes’ buffet,
There in the Groveland Hotel
Sitting with cronies at a table would say:
“Another round, Henry,
Bourbon for me.”

And at 7:30,
At the very moment
When the Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D.
Was saying let us pray,
Ed Breen would be beginning the night,
And would be saying to Henry Hughes:
“Another round, Henry,
Bourbon for me.”

You, Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D.
Lived to a ripe age.
You lived to marry a second wife.
And you, Ed Breen, died in the thirties.
But whether it be better to have ptomaine poisoning
From eating cold chicken,
Or to drug yourself to death with bourbon
I will ask the moon.
For there is the moon
Like a German silver watch
Under a grimy show case.
I think it hangs as much over the hotel
As over the church.

SUSIE

Where did you go, pale Susie, after the day
You left the service of the boarding house?
The night before we made carouse
And danced the time away.

We boys were in the kitchen and were drinking
Small beer--you slapped the hands of us
Who stroked your arms half amorous--
Where did you go, I’m thinking?

Medical students up at Hahnemann
Hunt women on a Saturday night.
And sing, tell tales, and verse recite,
And rush the forbidden can.

The paltry mistress made you pay for all
The fault of us, and packed you out of doors
When you had scrubbed the floors,
And swept the entrance hall.

I watched you in your faded cloak and hat
With canvas bag walk towards the Grove.
Then something in my fancy hove,
Laughing I caught you at
The doorway of the hotel on the street
Where I had tracked you round from thirty-first.
You laughed and cried and called me worst
Of devils on two feet.

There I had followed you and seized you when
You did not care what happened, so
You fell into my hands, you know--
’Tis twenty years since then.

I never saw you after that, nor heard
In all this city aught of you.
You vanished like a blot of dew,
Or ashen hued seed bird.

I wonder if you wed a red bull-throat
Who ran a rivet hammer, drove a truck,
Bore many children or worse luck
Went where the drift weeds float....

HAVING HIS WAY

We parted at the Union Station,
Tom Hall and I,
Two boys in the early twenties
Fresh from the quiet of fields,
And the sleepy silence of village life.
And we stepped into Adams Street,
Noisy from trucks and rattling cars,
And babbling multitudes.
He with his great invention,
And I with my translation of Homer,
And the books of Rousseau and Marx.

And he went his way
To sell his great invention.
And I in the village glory
Of clothes ill-fitting, timid, sensitive
And proud, a little learned, so zealous
For the weal of the world
Came to your chateau palace near the Drive,
To you my friend, my queenly cousin,
For a little visit before I entered
Upon the city’s life.
You looked me over with calm Egyptian eyes,
And put me at ease with your lovely smile.
And there was about you the calm of desert air in Nevada
That made me forget myself.
Yet you began to guide me with subtlest words,
And to mould me with delicate hands,
As one might smooth a rumpled collar,
Or fasten a loosened scarf,
Or lift to place a strand of hair
Of one beloved who thrills to the touch.
Even with closed eyes you saw everything
Of harmony, or form, or hue.
There were silver strings in your little ears
Which caught the tone pictures of sounds,
And the intonations and sonorities of voices;
Which trembled to the barbarities of unmelodic words.
And there as you saw and heard me,
(I knew it at once,)
You took me for your piece of bronze in the rough
To be made under your hands
Your triumph, your work, your creation
In the world where you ruled as queen.
You would see me as finished art
Move before admiring eyes
Where music is and richness,
And where poverty and struggle
And sacrifice and failure are forgotten.

That was the cousin you meant me to be.
And in a few nights
There was an evening dress and fine linen
And an opera hat and cloak
Laid out for me in my snow white room,
And a valet came to help me.
For we were to see Carmen together--
You and I in a box.
You the queen,
And I a genius from the country
Of whom the word had gone the rounds:
A translator of Homer,
And a dreamer of revolutions,
Her cousin, you know!

I was pale from fear and pride
As I entered the box with you.
I felt I was wronging my dreams
And apostatizing all I had dreamed
To be in this box with you.
And a sullen hatred of everything:
The mass of color, the faint perfumes,
The lights, the jewels, the dazzling breasts
Of the queens in the boxes angered me.
And everyone was smiling, and everyone was leveling
Opera glasses, sometimes at me,
A translator of Homer
And a dreamer of socialism.
And there like a fool I sat and thought
Of the cold without and the beggar man
Who stood at your carriage as we alighted.

And when the music arose at last
A sort of madness whirled in my brain.
For what was this Carmen thing
But subtle wickedness and cruel lust
And hardest heathenism,
And delight that seeks its own,
In a setting of bloody voluptuousness,
Fiendish caprice and faithlessness,
In music through which a pagan soul
Had sensed and voiced it all?
Till at least (I almost shrieked at this)
Don Jose in his amorous madness
Plunged a knife in the back of the whore he loved
To the growl of horns and moan of viols....

And you sat through it all
Like a firefly on a vine leaf
Suspiring in all your body,
And gazing with calm Egyptian eyes,
Or turning to me as if you would know
If the poison was in my blood....
But I was immune:
Democracy seemed too glorious,
And the cause of the poor too just,
And fair sweet love of men and women
So worth the cost to gain and keep,
And honest bread too sweet--
I was immune....
And I scarcely saw the fair slim girl
To whom you introduced me.
And I scarcely heard what you said in the carriage
About her countless riches.
And I scarcely heard your words of praise
That I looked like a prince,
And that you meant to help me,
And do by me what your husband would do
If he were living,
And lift me along to a place in life
Where power and riches are,
And beauty is and music,
And where struggle and sacrifice are forgotten.

And when I did not answer you thought
I sat abashed by your side.
Instead in my mind were running
The notes to Queen Mab,
And bits of Greek.
I did this to stifle my wrath,
And to forget the cage you were luring me into,
And the poison you were offering me,
And the cause of Truth!
And hiding my wrath in a day or two
I left you saying I would return,
But I never returned.

Instead I went where the youths were thinking,
Painting and writing,
And talking of the revolution,
And the glorious day to come.
And I was happy even though
They sent my great translation back
As poor and amateurish.
For the years of youth were long ahead
There was time to try again....

Then Margaret’s stepmother
Drove her from home, and she came to the city
Crying in her loneliness and destitution,
Suffering from her lame hip.
And even these were happy days,
For I loved her for her sorrows,
I loved her for her lameness.
It was all transfigured through my love
For democracy and sacrifice,
And the sweetness of honest bread.
And it was like taking the sacrament, our marriage.
And there in our little flat far out
On Robey Street I toiled at writing
While she went about so lame,
Trying to keep the house for me,
And to clear away the disorders
Which piled about her constantly
And were never cleared away....

And is it not strange that to-day,
After the lapse of ten years
These two things happen within an hour?
Your letter from Rome arrived--
For though I scorned your life and love,
And went my way,
You write me still it seems,
Not to wound my fallen state,
Nor to show me what my life had been
If I had heeded you.
But just in the continuous sunshine
Of noble friendship to show me
I am sometimes in your thought.
And scarcely had your letter come
When Tom Hall crept up the creaking stairs
Dragging his feet with the help of a cane--
He is rich and came to help me.
And Tom Hall had his way as well:
He hated marriage and went the rounds,
Wherever a pretty face allured.
And now he is sick and dragging his feet.
And here am I at a writing desk:
I’m cap and bells for the Daily Globe
And my grind is a column a day.
You see it comes to this, dear queen:
Can a man or woman alive escape
The granite’s edges or ditch’s mire,
The thorny thickets or marsh’s gas,
Or the traps one thinks would never be set
Except for the fox or wolf?....
And here is Margaret down with a cough
Never to rise from her bed again.
And I sit by at my task of jokes,
And I stop to read your letter again,
And wonder why life has never caught you,
And why you are laughing there in Rome
Where you dine with happy friends;
Or tramp the thickets around the ruins
Of the Baths of Caracalla--
I see the platforms and dizzy arches
Under a sky of Italy.
It’s cloudy here and the elevated
Rattles and roars beneath my window.
You’re picking flowers while it’s winter here.
I read these things in your letter and wonder
Is the asp at your breast in spite of laughter?
Or when is the asp to sting you?

THE ASP

As the train rushed on
The days of our youth swept through me,
As if they were brought to life by a sort of friction.
I thought of how madly you laughed
When we played at blindman’s buff with the Miller girls;
And of the May baskets we made together,
And hung as we rang the bell and ran.
And of our games in the first spring days
When we stole from house to house.
And the children were shouting
And the April moon was new.
And the smell of burning leaves
And the first tulips filled us with such ecstasy.
We laughed, we shouted, we leaped for joy.
We ran like mad through the rooms,
And we went to bed at last
Laughing and gasping,
And lay looking at the moon through the leafless boughs,
And fell to sleep with joyous hearts,
Thinking of to-morrow,
And the days and days to come for play,
And the summer to come,
And all the mad raptures of school at an end,
And no death, and no end
Of the love of father and mother,
And the home we loved.

And here it was spring again--
But such a spring!
At the end of such years and years
And births and births and spheres and spheres of life,
Each like a life or a world of its own
With its friends, its own completeness, its rounded end.
And back of them all
Our old home forgotten,
Our father and mother gone,
And back of this spring that ended world of ours
Wherein we parted
Grown misty too!
And as the train rushed on
And the hour of meeting you neared
I was thrilled with gladness, thrilled with fear.
And now the station was Herkimer,
And now it was Amsterdam,
And now it was Albany,
And then Poughkeepsie on the Hudson.
And I looked from the car to the passing scene,
And back to the car again.
Or I turned in my seat
Or took up my book and laid it down,
Or fastened my bag for the hundredth time,
Or straightened my cloak on the seat,
And waited and waited.
For I had a story to tell you
That I could not wait to tell.
I was traveling a thousand miles to tell you,
And to get your advice, to have your solace,
To look in your eyes again,
And to feel in spite of springs that were gone,
And our old home, and father and mother gone
There was an arm in the world for me to lean on.

And the train rushed on
Bringing me nearer to you.
And the tears welled up to my eyes
As I wondered why life had mangled me so:
Why the man I loved at first and hated afterward
Had died that tragic death,
Leaving me with memories of that love,
And such agony for that hate.
And why as a sort of Empress Eugenia
The world turned on me when I fell,
And the little power I had departed.
And why in spite of my aspiration
I had run into such disgust,
Such overthrow of my work,
Such undoing of myself,
Such spiritual wreck and shame!
And to think of what had done it:
My search for love, my struggle for excellence--
These things alone!
I had married this second man for love,
And because I believed in him
As a man of power, a man of thought,
A man who loved me.
And hoping through him to retrieve my life
From the smut of the man I married first.
But I found my very soul deceived:
He was just a violent visionary,
A frothing fool,
A spendthrift, coward, hedonist.
And there I was tied to him.
And carrying his child while finding him out.
So I used to stand with my face to the wall
And choke my mouth with a handkerchief
To keep from crying out.
For I knew if a whimper passed my lips
I should fall and roll on the floor with madness,
And beat my head on the floor.

So when the train rolled into the station
A sickness, a weakness came over me.
I had spent myself in expectation.
And now that I was about to see you,
The thought of the vainness of seeing you,
And the thought that you could not help me,
Though I had traveled these thousand miles,
Made me wish to fly, to hide.
So I stepped from the train in a kind of daze,
And scarcely felt your kiss.
It seemed relaxed, so faint.
And your voice was weak.
And your eyes were dim and dry.

And there in the cab as we drove to the Park
I was still in a daze
Talking of May baskets
And blindman’s buff,
And laughing, for one always laughs
When the moment is worst.
And so it was I did not really see you.
But when we began to walk
Things about you began to limn themselves:
Your shoulders seemed a little bent.
There were streaks of snow on your temples.
And you were quiet with the terrible quietness
Of understanding of life.
And the old wit I knew,
And the glad defiance of fate,
And the light in your eyes,
And the musical laugh
All were gone.
Perhaps the daily grind of Cap and Bells
Had sapped you, dear.
But when I looked at your hand on your cane
And saw how white and slim it was,
And how it trembled, I knew
You were not the giant man of old,
Though you said you were gaining strength again,
And I could lean on your arm.

Well, then I told you all:
How my search for love had fooled me again;
And how this beast had wronged and robbed me;
And how he stood in his paranoiac rages,
And compared himself to Christ.
But when I began to speak of the child,
What a darling girl she was,
You sank in a seat and said: “No more--
I didn’t think I was weak as this--
You mustn’t tell me another thing,
Not now, not just now.”
Then I saw, what Time had done,
And I saw that you could not help me.
And the next day and the next day,
When I did not see you,
And weeks passed by and I scarcely saw you,
And I scarcely saw you again,
Though I had come a thousand miles
To lean on your arm,
It grew in my mind that you despised me,
Or that you were indifferent to my lot,
Or at least that I was a wounded thing
You could not bear to see.
Till at last, though I knew
That my way was clear: there was nothing to do
But to fly with my child,
And leave him forever,
And endure great loneliness forever, if need be,
And whatever shame there was,
For the sake of my soul’s honor,
Which only myself could save,
And you could save not at all.
Though I knew, I say, that my way was clear,
And I needed your help not at all,
Still in a kind of madness
I began to reproach you for not helping me,
And for abandoning me to my fate.
As a sick child will cry and blame its mother
When it is not healed at once.

And that was the mood he found me in
When he came with a smile and honey words.
Well, I fell in his arms, and here I am
Plunged up to the mouth in spiritual muck,
And what life is left for me now?
How can I go on with life?
For he hates me now as a humbled thing,
He has broken my pride and he hates me now.
And he roars and curses about the house,
And yells at our little girl when she cries,
And stands with his hands outstretched and says
That his fate is worse than Christ’s.
And I tremble and rustle around like a fallen leaf,
And neither laugh nor cry nor return him a word....

For you know there’s a spring,
And you know there’s a fire,
To burn dead leaves.
And after the ashes
There’s a spirit given a chance!

THE FAMILY

We were three larks in the same nest.
All spring the wind blew from the west.
We chirped beneath the enshadowing wheat,
It grew to green, it grew to gold.
Our mother’s voice was piercing sweet
To see how strong we were and bold--
How palpitant of wing.

We knew our father not, alas!
A hunter slew him while the grass
Was fresh beneath the April rain.
And ere I had the strength to fly
Our brother sang a farewell strain
And soared into the empty sky.
And then our sister knew the fear
And hunger of a serpent’s eye.
And our sweet mother, lone and drear,
Fled far afield and left me here
To nurse my heart and sing.

THE SUBWAY

There was the white face of Fear,
And the solemn face of Duty,
And the face of self looking in the mirror.
But there were voices calling from vernal hilltops,
And silver spirits by moonlit gardens calling,
And voices of no sound from far horizons calling,
But even if there be penitence for living
And thought and tears for the past
And even shame and even hunger;
And if there be nothing gained at the last in living,
And much to pay for the madness of briefest bliss;
And if there be nothing in life, and life be nothing
So that to nail one’s self to the cross is nothing lost--
Is Death not even less?

These were the voices whereto we tore our flower
Petal by petal apart and scattered it,
And paused and paltered.

But lest the whispers grow louder,
And the eyebrows arch to a fiercer scorn,
You fled away to France and left me
With only a poor half uttered farewell,
A scrawl put off to the last, then written
As with shut eyes, swift nervous hands:
As one might wait for the heroic thought
To take his poison--wait in vain, and then
Cowardly gulp it down and reel to death.
I could not hate you for the pain of hate,
And could not love you who had hid yourself,
Belied yourself behind this scrawl.
I could only sit half-numb,
And drift in thought.

And afterwards it wasn’t so much to be alone,
Nor to dream of the days that were done,
Save as it deepened the surge in my heart,
Or strengthened the ebb of my soul for thought
Of your soul drawn away from me,
So needlessly drawn it seemed.
And it’s the music that deepens and changes,--
For as your soul adds strings to its strings
There are fingers to play--it almost seems
There are fingers about us that watch and wait
For a soul that’s adding strings to its harp
To play them when they’re strung.
And so it’s the music that deepens and changes
That kills you at last I think.